Weighty issue I feel powerless to handle (Longest Post Ever OMG)

[Jon1000]

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One thing that disturbs me is that Mom doesn't seem to love May at all. But May, because the filial piety virtues have been ingrained in her, feels the need to honor and obey a woman that doesn't care much for her in the first place. If May has a problem here, it's martyr syndrome.

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I guess I have a little problem with this statement, and I'm not sure exactly why, so I'm going to ramble at it for a moment.

May's mom feels that she has a duty to see May married, financially taken care of, and with a Chinese male. As far as she knows, May has none of these things and is doing what she sees as her duty before her daughter loses an opportunity. May has not explicitly told her differently. It seems sort of extreme to extrapolate from an act that is in a warped way supposed to be for May's benefit, not just her mom's, that May's mom must not love her at all.

Asian love is kind of strange sometimes. The situation you described is not the norm from my experience with Chinese friends in China nor Chinese friends in the US, but I do know people in May's situation regarding choosing their own profession, partner, etc that in some way deviates from the accepted family plan. Oh yeah. I'm third gen on my mom's side and second on my dad's.